Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Sales Review: July 2015

I was waiting to see the sales figures for this month because this represents sales of the second month of the DCYou soft reboot. I know that I sampled a number of new titles in the first month, trying to see if anything grabbed me. A couple did. A couple didn't. A couple I didn't even try.

Would there be a big fall off? Would some of the 'fresh' titles already be withering a bit on the vine?

And Supergirl? Well one version of her debuted with Justice League 3001. The main Supergirl bolted off of JLU.

I found the Supergirl in the Giffen/DeMatteis/Porter Justice League 3001 to be delightful. She seems to be the pre-Crisis Silver Age Kara. She is pro-active, incredibly powerful, and seemingly optimistic. Despite landing in a cruddy future, her first act is to take out Starro.

And Justice League 3001 #1 sold pretty solidly selling just over 32K.

Well, the book lost a third of its readers and orders from issue #1 to issue #2.

I have picked over every issue of this arc. I have commented on my concerns. I don't need to revisit them here.

But one thing I will say is that Action Comics by Greg Pak and Aaron Kuder has been the best of those books.

Action Comics #42 sold nearly 38K. It was the 55th best selling title overall. That is a shame because this team is really bringing us the best Superman there is right now. And I really love the stories they have done which haven't been part of some major story arc.

But what really shocks me is that Superman/Wonder Woman, a book showcasing 2 of the 3 biggest DC characters, is selling only a smidge more than a book called Mrs. Deadpool and the Howling Commandos. What Bizarro world are we living on?

Lastly, I will remind everyone that Supergirl was selling around 26K over the last 6 months of its run. There was some buzz.

So of course it was cancelled.

And so I bring you the list of all the major DC titles which are currently selling less than what Supergirl was selling.

As always, this isn't a comment on quality.
But comics are a business and I am still questioning the business decision to cancel Supergirl and keep a book off the racks.

I also wonder if DC really thought books like Doomed, Omega Men, and All Star Section 8 would be a big draw. Doomed, the book I thought was doomed from its announcement, is selling 17K. That's two thirds of what Supergirl sold.

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

You should email a DC a copy of your sales results and ask them what's up directly. I doubt you would get an answer but you never know. Hopefully the TV will do well enough to respark interest (well DC's interest mainly since we still have it) in brining her book back.

It's interesting too that DC is putting out new trades of both PAD's and Loeb/ Turner's Supergirl, and digital editions of TDNAOS, PAD's Supergirl and Pre-Flashpoint Kara, no doubt due to the new interest in Supergirl, yet refuse to have a new book on the shelf. I really think it should be asked why a book that was selling better than X number of others, especially one that was gaining interest due in part to a female hero being (co-)written and drawn by women, bringing back Maxima (and who was GLBTQA) and Superboy, was suddenly cancelled without even allowing all the story arcs to be concluded (Silver Banshee and the return of Blaze). Yes, the "big orange Supergirl" of Starfire was coming, but surely there could have been room for one of the most iconic super hero women out there to have her own book. If it was due to Convergence, then why not at least a mini-series with original Kara - after all, somehow Clois & Son survived Crisis and the 1980's and landed in Post-Flashpoint Earth, so why not her. In any case, I would really like DC to address this, and that this gets more coverage. DC can lie, but when it's shown that so many books that undersold Supergirl are still with us, it makes no sense - other than DC is sexist/ doesn't like Kara.